The Ceibal Foundation launches a project to improve the learning of reading and writing

The Ceibal Foundation has presented the project “Leveraging the contribution of Edutech to improve literacy in Spanish“, which seeks to develop an app to support the learning of reading and writing in Spanish by children in their early literacy stage, with a focus on vulnerable contexts.

During the launch event, the president of the Ceibal Foundation and Ceibal, Leandro Folgar, highlighted the significance of the project and the work it involves, as well as the collaboration of all the participating institutions: civil society, universities and international organizations. “We are embarking on an exploration project with partners who will support us along the way so that the effort can be a long-term one.”

Led by the Ceibal Foundation, this project will be carried out with the collaboration of Ceibal and the support and funding of IDB Lab and ReachingU Foundation. The development of the application will make it necessary to adapt a selection of analogue content developed and tested in education centres in Uruguay by the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU) and the Sophia Foundation. The project included a preliminary stage for designing an exploratory prototype with the help of IDRC Canada.

Representatives of the strategic partners and members of the Ceibal and Ceibal Foundation technical teams involved participated in the launch of the project. They all agreed on the significance of promoting synergies in order to make contributions and develop a tool that will help better train future generations. In this line, Ceibal’s General Manager, Fiorella Haim, pointed out: “We are pleased to be able to work on this project, an interdisciplinary initiative that involves the work of different sectors of Ceibal and allows us to make contributions and learn”.

“One of the keys of this initiative is to be able to deliver a heavily gamified educational experience,” said Ceibal Foundation’s director, María Florencia Ripani. She noted that this initiative arose in the context of the Ceibal Foundation project Alliance for the Digitalization of Education in Latin America (ADELA), funded by IDRC Canada. During the pandemic, ADELA worked with countries in the region to detect challenges, which created the need for a tool – an app – for early reading and writing. “There is a gap for the development of tools for early reading and writing, and this is an opportunity to create synergies for the sake of the groups that need it the most,” Ripani stressed.

“This project is an opportunity for the Ceibal Foundation, Ceibal and partners to contribute to Uruguay and the region,” Folgar concluded.